The Maltese Falcon is a 1941 Warner Brothers film written and directed by John Huston, based on the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett, and starring Humphrey Bogart as private investigator Sam Spade, Mary Astor as his femme fatale client, Sydney Greenstreet in his film debut, and Peter Lorre. The film was Huston's directorial debut and was nominated for three Academy Awards.